Bug 511155 - Digital Clock manual inline pipe divider adds unwanted padding
Summary: Digital Clock manual inline pipe divider adds unwanted padding
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: plasmashell
Classification: Plasma
Component: Digital Clock widget (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: 6.5.0
Platform: Arch Linux Linux
: NOR normal
Target Milestone: 1.0
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2025-10-26 13:30 UTC by Frank
Modified: 2025-10-26 23:04 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:


Attachments
With delimiter before 6.5.0 (145.26 KB, image/png)
2025-10-26 13:30 UTC, Frank
Details
Padding with pipe on 6.5.0 (16.56 KB, image/png)
2025-10-26 13:32 UTC, Frank
Details
Padding with U+2503 (30.20 KB, image/png)
2025-10-26 19:25 UTC, Frank
Details
No padding on left of divider (28.74 KB, image/png)
2025-10-26 23:04 UTC, Frank
Details

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Description Frank 2025-10-26 13:30:41 UTC
Created attachment 186185 [details]
With delimiter before 6.5.0

SUMMARY
Before 6.5.0 Plasma was automatically adding an inline pipe divider between the Date and Time.

Apparently some users did not like that. I do not question that.
https://discuss.kde.org/t/a-pipe-vertical-line-character-shows-between-date-and-time-in-the-digital-clock-widget-on-the-panel/30374

And it was removed with 6.5.0.
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=499989

The alternative was to add a pipe or comma in the Custom Date format.

This does not seem like a polished solution:

- Depending on the Font you use, the pipe may not be centered vertically (Fira Sans for example)
- Using a pipe causes a slight padding to be added on right side of it depending on the time format you use and the Font weight (Bold or not etc). The only moment it looks right is when you use a 24-Hour format AND your time is between 12:00 and 23:59.

So in order to prevent that visual flaw you have to use something else than a pipe as the divider. But the pipe is the one that we, at Garuda Linux, find the better looking for our themes, it fits perfectly well. Was fitting perfectly well before 6.5.0, now by adding it manually it introduced a visual flaw.

By adding a comma (,) for example, it makes the entire line with too many commas, we have one after the Day of the Week and then another one after the Date, which is another reason why the pipe was perfect visually speaking.

What are the suggestions if we want to keep the pipe, have equally spaced characters no matter the Time format and keep our theme's system Font?



STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. 
2. 
3. 

OBSERVED RESULT


EXPECTED RESULT


SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Windows: 
macOS: 
(available in the Info Center app, or by running `kinfo` in a terminal window)
Linux/KDE Plasma: 
KDE Plasma Version: 
KDE Frameworks Version: 
Qt Version: 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Comment 1 Frank 2025-10-26 13:32:11 UTC
Created attachment 186186 [details]
Padding with pipe on 6.5.0
Comment 2 Niccolò Venerandi 2025-10-26 17:10:31 UTC
The following unicode characters should do the trick: U+2502 U+2503 U+FF5C
Comment 3 Frank 2025-10-26 19:25:25 UTC
(In reply to Niccolò Venerandi from comment #2)
> The following unicode characters should do the trick: U+2502 U+2503 U+FF5C

If it works for you, how do you implement this in order to remove the padding that is there to make place for the 2nd digit of the hour?
I will attach a screenshot of one unicode. The last one has the label NC GLYPH written vertically on it, maybe I missing a package to interpret this properly.
All 3 still show the padding on the right side.
The screenshot is the heavy pipe which corresponds to U+2503 and we see the padding on the right.
Comment 4 Frank 2025-10-26 19:25:49 UTC
Created attachment 186203 [details]
Padding with U+2503
Comment 5 Frank 2025-10-26 23:04:33 UTC
Created attachment 186211 [details]
No padding on left of divider

This screenshot shows the issue better. There is no padding on the left of the divider but there is one hard coded on the right to make place for the left digit of the hour when it is shown with 2 digits. But when it is not, it looks off.